Rob Beckley: Absolutely. Our fans are very zealous and word of mouth is huge for us. We've sold 300,000 records on our last two albums. How do we branch outside of that? We've reached a plateau and the only thing we know to do is work harder and get the word out to even more people. We're a band that wants the opportunity to respect us for the musicians that we are.
Are you concerned that some fans will thing you're "sellouts" because of that?
The cool thing is we already dealt with most of those people a few years ago when we signed to MCA Records. People call you sellouts. It's the same record, it was just out on a different label. I really don't care. I'm doing what I know I'm supposed to do. I'm not doing it to please someone that things they know what someone they never met is supposed to do. I don't live my life to please everybody else. I may step on some toes and offend a couple people along the way, but for the most part we're humble Midwest guys that want to do what we're called to do and love to do.
You've got a fall tour lined up. Anything else after that?
My wife is due any day with our first kid. Then we're starting a 40 city tour October 26th. After that we're waiting to see what happens.
With more and more material I imagine it gets harder to put together the setlist for each tour.
That's when the real arguments start. We put our set together and then have two to four alternate songs that we can work in. On this tour we're going to try to work up a cover medley of some of the songs that influenced us over the years and inspired us to start the band. You could hear everything from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Rage Against The Machine to Metallica to Pantera. We don't know for sure yet, but we're talking about it.
Do you have anything unusual on your tour rider?
Hot Tamales. Our drummer loves them. When we walk into the dressing room and see hot tamales we know that they've read the rider.
Who have you had the most fun touring with?
There are a lot of them. P.O.D. was probably the most fun we've had. Sometimes you get out there on the road and egos clash. We have a bus and show up at 10 in the morning at the venue. Other guys are in vans and don't get there until 3 in the afternoon and we just don't get the chance to hang out with them. On the P.O.D. tour it was like family. We all hung out, ate dinner together, talked. We even got together the day before the tour started to get to know each other. That was the best tour we ever did.
